There is no 'later'
Apr. 3rd, 2007 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morslaI realised something that's been slowing me down lately... a problem that had been masquerading as a solution. Faced with large amounts of work, I tried breaking each task up into manageable chunks - bite-sized bits, small enough to be easily dealt with one by one. In theory, this would chip away at the monolith until my mountain became a molehill... neatly dealing with that rabbit-in-the-headlights feeling that seems to happen when I think about just how much work needs doing.
Good theory. Unfortunately, in my case, completely wrong.
I do tend to delay starting work, but it doesn't seem related to the amount of work involved. It's really just mental inertia. I'm slow to get started, but I can (and often do) spend hours or days grinding through the most mind-numbing of jobs, once I get moving. When I stop, I'm back at the start again - thinking in eight directions at once, remembering half-forgotten other ideas, and generally not doing what I'm supposed to.
Breaking up the big jobs doesn't work, as it introduces a whole lot of artificial 'out' points... emergency exits for a brain looking for distraction. Once a small job is finished, the most common response is to go, "Well done! Now take a break for a while." And then the rest of the day vanishes. Do now or do not - there is no 'later.'
Wasting time is a problem, but it's handy understanding why and how that time gets lost. Once you spot a pattern, the next step is working out how to make use of it...
I've just pinned together the last batch of Ian's models - a huge job, covering the whole table. Hundreds of tiny bits of metal, each of which need steel pins to strengthen the joints. Most of the bits aren't much wider than the pins are, so all the drilling needs to be done by hand. I've been uneasily eyeing off the pile of white metal for a week now, finding other jobs to do instead. Realising that doing it in installments wasn't going to work, I decided to trick myself into doing it all at once.
It's a simple trick, but it worked. All the pieces that need pinning are in pairs. I took an odd number of pinning wires, and started work on the first batch... gluing wires in place, trimming off the spare wire, and using it to pin another piece. When I ran out of wire on the first of a new pair, I needed to trim unused wire from a finished piece to complete its twin... leaving half a 'finished' pair. By trimming its twin, I had another bit of wire ready to get me halfway through the next one... and the cycle repeats. By removing the ability to say, "now I'm halfway through the work" I didn't have a clear finishing place until the whole job was done...
Good theory. Unfortunately, in my case, completely wrong.
I do tend to delay starting work, but it doesn't seem related to the amount of work involved. It's really just mental inertia. I'm slow to get started, but I can (and often do) spend hours or days grinding through the most mind-numbing of jobs, once I get moving. When I stop, I'm back at the start again - thinking in eight directions at once, remembering half-forgotten other ideas, and generally not doing what I'm supposed to.
Breaking up the big jobs doesn't work, as it introduces a whole lot of artificial 'out' points... emergency exits for a brain looking for distraction. Once a small job is finished, the most common response is to go, "Well done! Now take a break for a while." And then the rest of the day vanishes. Do now or do not - there is no 'later.'
Wasting time is a problem, but it's handy understanding why and how that time gets lost. Once you spot a pattern, the next step is working out how to make use of it...
I've just pinned together the last batch of Ian's models - a huge job, covering the whole table. Hundreds of tiny bits of metal, each of which need steel pins to strengthen the joints. Most of the bits aren't much wider than the pins are, so all the drilling needs to be done by hand. I've been uneasily eyeing off the pile of white metal for a week now, finding other jobs to do instead. Realising that doing it in installments wasn't going to work, I decided to trick myself into doing it all at once.
It's a simple trick, but it worked. All the pieces that need pinning are in pairs. I took an odd number of pinning wires, and started work on the first batch... gluing wires in place, trimming off the spare wire, and using it to pin another piece. When I ran out of wire on the first of a new pair, I needed to trim unused wire from a finished piece to complete its twin... leaving half a 'finished' pair. By trimming its twin, I had another bit of wire ready to get me halfway through the next one... and the cycle repeats. By removing the ability to say, "now I'm halfway through the work" I didn't have a clear finishing place until the whole job was done...
